Walking Wounded
by roane
Summary: Steve is looking for Bucky Barnes. He won't find him. Natasha is looking for the Winter Soldier. And if anyone can find him, she can.


**Notes:** Many thanks to provocatrixxx and airynothing for betaing (and airy's corrections of my pitiful Google-translate Russian).

Translations for Russian in the endnotes, but most of it is relatively clear from the context.

* * *

Before Natasha leaves DC, she pulls out one of her few remaining identities and activates it. Not all of her secrets went out with SHIELD, only the ones SHIELD knew about. This one is old, so old she doubts it would ping any radars at the KGB-pardon, the FSB-but if it did, they'd wonder at a sleeper agent showing up again after twenty years.

She knows every safe house within a one hundred mile radius. Some she can eliminate immediately. Too new, too old, occupied. If what Rogers says is true, the Winter Soldier is wounded and his programming is unraveling. He'll be vulnerable, dazed, possibly hallucinating.

Once again she makes a note to take a closer look at Rogers' training. As far as she knew, Psy Ops wasn't on the list, but he made some damned shrewd choices. Stealing and wearing his old uniform from the Smithsonian might just have been the visual cue that finally broke Moscow's deadliest asset.

Whatever did it, Natasha knows what her target will be looking for: somewhere dark, safe, and quiet where he can start sorting out what's real and what isn't anymore. She doesn't envy him the task. His programming makes hers look like a simple post-hypnotic suggestion. Her handlers only had years to work on her. His had decades.

She sorts through her lists of possibilities and narrows it down to the three remotest of the ones she thinks Barnes is likely to think of. In addition to her weaponry, she loads up a pack with basic camping supplies: a lantern, a decent sleeping bag, some MREs. And medical supplies. He won't be thinking of basic bodily needs right now. She's not entirely sure he'll remember that he's human at first.

They've been training for hours, and although she knows she should feel honored, all she feels now is pain and fatigue.

"Vstavaytye. Udar'tye menya snova." She obeys, rising to her feet and setting into her stance again, although the blood is already streaming from cuts over her eye, on her cheek, and along her jaw. Her muscles cry out for mercy, but she looks at her opponent for an opening. There is nothing. Eyes like the ice he's named for, face like stone. His body betrays nothing, perfect frozen stillness like an automaton awaiting a command.

She steps forward to try and slip past his guard and the silver arm flashes in the stark overhead lights, giving her a millisecond of warning, enough time to make a potentially lethal blow a merely agonizing one.

She gets to her feet again before he has a chance to order her, and comes at him low. He's off-guard just enough for her to close and grapple, just enough for her to drop the knife from her sleeve that he doesn't know about and aim it at his kidney.

"Natalia." It's the first time he's said her name. "Smotritye." _Look._ His arm is between them, and he has a knife of his own, aimed at her heart. She drops the contraband knife and lets him go, expecting punishment.

What happens next becomes KGB legend years later. The Winter Soldier smiles.

The first safehouse is a bust. Between the time she'd plotted it on her map to the time she gets there, someone's torched the place. She's not the only one looking for HYDRA's missing asset. She just has to be the one to find him first.

The second safehouse is outside Alexandria, far enough out to almost count as rural. It's a compact ranch house, but Natasha knows that it has a basement more extensive than its exterior would suggest. She watches the house until dark. There's no sign of habitation-but then, there wouldn't be.

After sunset, before moonrise, she circles the house and moves toward the back door. She unsnaps her holsters, but doesn't draw, not yet. The door opens with a neglected creak and she halts in the doorway, listening. Nothing.

The house is dark and dusty, but it's not unoccupied. It's nothing she hears, but a feeling. The electrical field generated by another living being, like the sensation of a television turned on in a distant room. She creeps down the stairs into the basement.

It's a warren of rooms with locking doors. _Cells, let's be truthful. They're cells._ How many people had been kept captive here through the years? After the fall of KGB, had it been HYDRA that used this house, or SHIELD? Or both? Who had they kept here?

Only one of the doors is closed. Had he come here to feel safe, or because he thought he needed to be locked up?

With one hand on her pistol, she pulls the door open. The odor of unwashed human wafts from the room, and the lower, darker scent of a wound left untended too long. In the corner is what looks to be a pile of dirty laundry, except that dirty laundry doesn't come with a mop of dark hair or a battered metal arm with its scratched and peeling red star on the shoulder.

"Tovarishch," she says quietly, not wanting to startle him. "Tovarishch, prosnis'."

He startles anyway, lurches to his feet by leaning heavily against the wall. His hair hangs lank in front of eyes gone feral, and although his knife is in his hand, she can see that one good swat would knock it from his weakened grasp.

"Tebe bol'no. Pozvol' mne pomoch'." Taking a chance, she draws her hand away from her weapon and holds both of them out and open-palmed. She takes a step forward and he snarls at her, dirty hand tightening around the hilt of his knife. "Eto ya. Pozvol' mne pomoch'," she says again.

This time something shifts behind his eyes. He blinks, and looks at her. "Natalia?" His voice is a dry, rusty crow's croak.

"Da." Another step towards him, and she moves slow, reaching for her canteen.

"Pochemu ty zdyes? Mne eto snitsya?"

She shakes her head and smiles, just a little bit, and unscrews the canteen lid. She takes a drink, then offers it to him. Let the feeling of cool water in his throat convince him this isn't a dream. He sinks back to a sitting position, accepting the canteen. He drinks thirstily, but stops before he drinks too much, discipline still with him even now.

He breaks protocol from the moment their feet touch non-Soviet soil. It's her first mission as a full-fledged agent, and she's eager to impress. He, however, seems just as eager to enjoy the fruits of Western capitalist culture. The first thing he does is move them out of the carefully-chosen safehouse near Trafalgar Square and into a tiny rented room on the other side of town. There's only one bed.

"We're here to observe," she says. "How can we observe if we're an hour away by Tube?"

"Exactly," he says, wearing a grin that would shatter his image as the silent killer pulled from the ice of Nazi Germany. "We're here to _observe_, not _be observed_. I won't be spied on by our enemies. Or our brethren."

"And we're supposed to both sleep there?" she says, indicating the flat, lumpy-looking mattress.

"I don't sleep," he says. "It's all yours."

She's forced to admit that he's right, though. They spend less time losing tails and dodging countermeasures than she expected.

The last night of the mission, she finds him by the tiny dirty window of their room drinking straight from a bottle of American whiskey. When he sees her, he raises the bottle. "To a successful mission." She takes it from his hand and drinks, letting the warmth blossom in her belly. When she hands it back, he doesn't drink, instead he puts the bottle aside and takes her hand, pulling himself to his feet.

He puts his arms around her like they're dancing, and murmurs into her hair. "Natalia Alianovna. They've taught you all the techniques, but do you ever get to think about what you actually want?"

"You're an asshole," she laughs, amused at how easily speaking English comes to her now. She's been seducing men and women since she was fourteen years old. Where sex is concerned, 'what she wants' always comes down to one of two things: information or power.

"That isn't an answer." His lips touch her ear and they're warm. "Tell me what you want."

She pulls back, planning to laugh at him again, but there's a gleam in his eyes that's like a challenge. She knows he's older than he looks. Old enough to have fought in a war she's only seen in history books. Some people whisper that he was cursed by Rasputin, others that he was a lover of Catherine the Great. Mythological garbage, but useful in the right hands. But right now he looks a little like a debauched cherub, and she's struck with an urge to bite that ridiculous little mouth. She catches his head in her hands and pulls him close, running her teeth over his upper lip before kissing him hard.

His arms tighten and lift her off the floor, the feeling of the hard metal fingers of his left hand sending an unexpected shiver down her spine. She curls her legs around the backs of his thighs and lets him carry her to the narrow bed. He doesn't lay her down, but pulls her into his lap and lies back, his hands already fumbling to push clothing out of the way, sliding up her skirt.

For a moment-just a moment-she wonders if this is a test, and if she's failing it, but then he's running the fingers of his good hand up her thigh and whispering to her in Russian how good she's going to taste, and she decides she doesn't care. He pulls her underwear off and she hears it land across the room as his hands, one flesh, one metal, curve over her buttocks, urging her up his body. His mouth scatters kisses as she slides up, her heart clattering in her chest. This is a human side of him she hadn't anticipated. It occurs to her how many lives the hands stroking her ass have ended, and it sends a sharp, spiraling spike of want straight down between her legs.

He noses his way beneath her skirt and bites at the soft skin of her thighs until she moans and relaxes against him, letting him shift and move her until she's straddling his mouth. Even then he holds her just above him so she can feel his breath against her inner thighs and lips. Then the tip of his tongue traces the shape of her outer lips until she wants to growl and grind down against him-but his hands keep her still and just out of reach. The strength it takes to hold her balanced just above his tongue is almost enough to take her breath away on its own. Slowly, he lowers her to his mouth and teases her with tiny kisses and licks like a hummingbird sampling nectar.

"Please." Damn it. The word's a weakness and she didn't mean to say it, but he rewards her with a single slow lick that parts her lips and strokes everywhere, tracing the shape of her clit from root to tip and leaving her gasping.

It becomes a game. He holds back until she gives up a bit more control, then rewards her with his mouth. She winds up putting on a show for him, moaning and cursing in broken Russian just so he'll finally slide his tongue into her and let her rock against him. They both get what they want. He gets the Black Widow shaking and writhing above him in helpless ecstasy; she gets the intense pleasure of his mouth making her come hard without letting him see anything real.

He lowers her to the bed, and she expects him to take her, to finish, but instead he lies on his side watching her. His lips twist in a smirk and he says. "You're as good as they say." She smiles a sweet smile, but he reaches out with his metal hand and pushes a strand of red hair from her eyes. "This time though, no lies, hm?" She can taste herself on his lips when he kisses her and pushes her onto her back.

The Soldier's a mess. Every bit of skin she can see is grimed or has flakes of ancient dried blood, and his clothes look like he stole them from a scarecrow-the uniform she last saw is gone. The hollows under his cheeks and eyes though, those aren't dirt smudges. He seems relatively cognizant, so she risks switching to English. "When did you eat last?"

His head jerks up, confusion flashing in a quick brow furrow, distrust a semaphore of curled lip. Then it's gone, and she sees a flash of teeth that might be a smile in another universe. "Depends. What year is it?"

"That long," she deadpans. She steps close enough to crouch nearby and pulls out one of the MREs she's brought with her. "Eat slow. Stop if you feel sick."

Like with the water, he shows astonishing discipline, eating small bites of cold spaghetti and meatballs straight from the pouch. "These are better than they used to be." He frowns after he says it.

She doesn't give him a chance to think. "Tell me what they were like before."

"Green." A small shake of his head. "I mean. The packaging. The food wasn't green. It was just... barely edible." He laughs, and for a second his accent shifts from neutral to Brooklyn. "This was this chocolate, well, they called it chocolate, but it sure as hell didn't taste like the chocolate we got back home-" He breaks off, eyes widening.

"You okay?"

"That was him," he says, in neutral again. "Wasn't it. The guy from the museum."

She gives a cautious shrug. "You've got a lot to work through," is all she says.

Barsukov thought that because he was finished with the Politburo, the Politburo would be finished with him. Their mission was to tie up the loose end. She's stationed at a bar in a club mostly favored by American expats, where Barsukov has been meeting with CIA agents for weeks. If they don't get him tonight, he'll likely defect beyond their reach.

"Target acquired." The night air of Sao Paulo is muggy and sweltering, and she's dressed for it, a shoulder-baring sundress and casual sandals. A fall of hair conceals the earpiece, and his voice in her ear, speaking in English. "He's headed your way."

He'd picked the outfit, made the plan. She'd asked him why they didn't just put a bullet in Barsukov's head from a distance. "Because this is more fun," he'd said. She's sure that neither the grin he gives her or the notion of a mission as 'fun' are things their handlers would approve of. She should never have let him talk her into this. They've already had reprimands for their unorthodox methods. If they weren't so successful, they'd likely both be in Siberia.

Natasha finishes her drink, more water than rum by now, and lets out a wild laugh. "Another!" She'd worked for months in the Red Room, punished and driven until her English was idiomatic and the accent perfect Midwestern US. When the bartender comes by and winks at her, she turns around, just in time to bump into Barsukov. He's always been a ladies man, vain of his barely-above-average looks, and based on their intel, he's been sleeping alone for far too long in glamorous South America.

"Whoops, sorry," she giggles, wrapping her fingers around his lapel to steady herself. "I didn't see you there."

From there it's so easy she could have played him in her sleep. For a man on the run from Mother Russia, he's remarkably careless. Lure him away from the club, neutralize him. This could have been a single person mission, easy.

At least, that's the plan.

But as moronic as Barsukov is, his CIA handlers are not letting him just walk out of there with a total unknown. She pouts prettily and lets them herd her away from him.

The voice in her ear calls her back to their safehouse for now-as before, not their assigned safehouse, but one he's chosen himself. He's there when she gets there. She's struck again by how different he is here, away from the grayness of Russia. Despite the failure of their attempt, he laughs at her irritation. It's further indication that he's still human.

"You know," he says, looking her up and down, "it would be a shame to let a dress like that go to waste."

She isn't fooled. "You knew his handlers would sniff me out, didn't you."

He grins. "Told you it would be fun though. Besides, you look good."

"I do, don't I." She looks at him through her heavily mascaraed eyelashes. "Idi syuda."

She doesn't trust him to stand up in a shower alone, but undresses him and makes him stand under the hot water while she holds on to his arm to steady him. At first, he acquiesces like a child, and she's surprised at how much it hurts to see him standing with his head hanging down in the hot water like a marionette with no puppeteer. Then there's another shift, as if the water rinses off a layer of conditioning with the grime, and he starts grousing at her in Russian until she agrees to let him take a bath by himself.

There are spare clothes in one of the bedrooms. She guesses at his sizes while keeping one ear tuned to the splashing in the bathroom. When it stops, she goes to the door and knocks, clothing draped over one arm, med kit under the other. "You okay in there?" She's careful not to call him by any name-she's not entirely certain who she's speaking to.

"Da."

She sticks to English. "Can I come in? I have clothes for you." She takes his silence for assent. He's drying himself off, but she can see his strength is starting to flag a bit. "Let me help." His body is marked with yellowing bruises and numerous cuts in various stages of healing. Based on Rogers's description of the fight, he must have had broken ribs at the least, but he shows no sign of them now. The worst of the cuts is a deep one on his good arm. Judging by his healing factors, he must've damn near lost his good arm in the fight. It's not healing well. "Sit down," she says, putting him on the edge of the tub. He's still naked, but neither of them has any body-shyness anymore.

Neither of them talk while she cleans and bandages the wound, although he hisses once when she probes too deep. There's a shot of antibiotics in the kit, and she gives it to him, although he probably won't need it. Dressing him is like dressing a giant doll, the quiet acquiescence returning. It's eerie, and she wonders what the hell HYDRA did to trigger it. Everything is a little too big on him, but at least he's clean. "Come on, you need to eat."

"I just ate," he complains.

"I have chocolate though. The real stuff."

Two days later, Barsukov is killed along with twenty-three civilians when the train he's on explodes.

A little drunk on tropical warmth and each other, they delay their return to Moscow too long. Their handlers call Sao Paulo a failure. Twenty-four casualties do not a covert operation make.

She isn't punished, but his screams when they wipe his mind seem to echo through the academy for days.

It's the last real freedom he gets. He was becoming too reckless, they say. Too unreliable. (_Too human_, she thinks.) The wipes between missions become more comprehensive. He spends more time in the ice. And each time there's less of him that comes back.

The Winter Soldier still provides lessons for new agents, but now he's a cautionary tale. _We can make you into what we need, even if what we need is a mindless automaton with a gun._

The last time she sees him-when he puts a bullet through her to kill the man behind her-there's nothing left behind his eyes.

She hasn't thought about Sao Paulo in a long while. Loki tried to throw it in her face, but he got it wrong. Clint managed to keep the true source of her shame about Sao Paulo a secret from Loki, even under mind control.

Guilt is a waste of time, and there's little she's done that still haunts her. If she had pushed him in Sao Paulo, made him stick to the script-how much longer would they have let him keep his mind? Or was his fate sealed as time wore away his initial programming like drops of water on stone?

She convinces him to sleep in a bed instead of on the floor, promising to stand guard. He's hardly said four sentences since she got him cleaned up and fed. Whatever is going on inside his head, whatever he remembers or doesn't remember, he's keeping it to himself. She can be patient. Sooner or later the cracks in his reality are going to let things spill over and come rushing out. She just needs to be ready.

The house is quiet, so quiet that she slips into a shallow doze, her head resting against the bedroom window where she's been keeping watch. She jerks awake when he screams, the sound at first wordless, then in German, begging someone to stop. By the time she gets to the bed he's sitting up, sightless. He turns to her and leaps, knocking them both back to the floor.

He's fighting to get his hands around her neck, and she's trying to stay alive. His flesh hand closes around her shoulder to pin her down, while his metal fist goes back. He slams it down towards her face, but she rolls just enough that he smashes the carpeted floor of the bedroom, tearing pale aqua shag and splintering the floorboards beneath. She's got him off balance, so she shoves as hard as she can and wriggles free.

He gets to his feet to come after her.

"Tovarishch. Nyet!" It does nothing. Whatever he's seeing in his mind, he's intent on murder. He outclasses her at hand-to-hand, but at least there are no weapons in the room. On the other hand, that means she's unarmed and he's a better fighter. He rushes her, and she manages to dodge, feeling the ghost-touch of his fingers brushing at her hair.

It's a misstep. Now he's between her and the door. The window is behind her. They're on the second floor, and she's survived worse, but... the plan was to keep him in the house until he was more stable. Fleeing outside scuttles that thoroughly.

He smiles-a feral baring of his teeth-and advances.

Her mind rushes through different scenarios. She's an idiot to have come up here unarmed. Can she risk another duck around him, will it work twice? She needs a distraction.

"Bucky-don't." The name escapes her without a plan behind it.

He stops mid-step and growls, "Don't. Don't call me that."

Talking is a promising sign. "It was your name."

"I don't have a name," he says, but some of the tension drains from his stance. He's no longer about to spring.

"Everyone has a name," she says.

"_You_ have a name."

_I have several_, she doesn't say. Instead she meets his eyes and lets him see what he will-or at least what he can.

"Natalia Alianovna." He steps forward and takes her by the shoulders. She lets him, hearing the abused servos in his metal arm creak forlornly. The Winter Soldier almost smiles, but then his brow furrows. Darkness falls behind his eyes again and the hands on her arms bite and he spins, thudding her against the wall. "Blyad'!" he spits. "Traitor whore."

Her heart thuds in her chest but she swallows it, schooling her expression into one of bored calm. He could tear her to pieces with little more than a desire to do so. "You remember that, then."

Does he? The question chases itself across his face. She's going to have fingermark bruises on her arms in a few hours, if she's alive to form them. "No. I just know." A moment ago he was ready to kill her, now he looks lost again. He shakes his head. "But it's not true, is it. You defected to the West, but you aren't an enemy."

"We were friends, once," she says. "Besides, there is no more KGB. Can't betray something that doesn't exist anymore." Slowly his fingers uncurl, releasing her. She fights the urge to rub at the sore spots. "What do you remember?"

"When I look at you, I think in Russian," he finally says. "And I don't think I'm Russian. But you are."

It's a promising start. "Do you know where you are?"

"Alexandria, Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC. It's 2014 and I was on my thirty-fifth-or thirty-sixth-mission. Mission aborted. Subject escaped." It's like hearing a recording with a glitch. He's staring sightlessly out the darkened window, standing at attention.

She speaks quietly. "What's your next objective?"

"Objective:-" He pauses. "Objective:-" Out of the corner of her eye, she sees his stance wilt, and there's a crack in his voice when he says, "...I don't remember." His fists clench. "Why would I be in Russia?"

"You had missions in Russia," she says, rising to her feet. She takes him by the elbow to guide him back to the bed. "Try to sleep again. Your dreams-pay attention to them. They might help."

"You may not want to pull on that thread," she tells Rogers, handing him a folder. It's so much more than he knows. He doesn't realize how much of an act of trust it is, her telling him where to start learning about the Winter Soldier's history. He doesn't realize that his friend's history and hers are twisted and joined, and in learning one, he'll learn the other.

No one has all of her. That way she can never be destroyed. But between the data she released on SHIELD and HYDRA, and the folder that's in Rogers's hands, he's going to have more of her than anybody but Clint-and Clint has so much of her he doesn't count anymore. She's almost not sure where she ends and he begins.

She lies to Steve and Sam about where she's going. It barely registers. Even after all this time, Natasha still compartmentalizes. It's not something she could stop even if she wanted to. She learned early. They're good guys, too good for this mission. And they're working on false information. Rogers is looking for Bucky Barnes. He won't find him. Natasha is looking for the Winter Soldier. And if anyone can find him, she can.

The sunrise wakes her, and she stretches muscles gone stiff from sitting too long.

The bed is empty.

_Damn it._

She leaps to her feet, cursing herself for a fool. How long has he been gone? He'd seemed so calm when he finally went back to sleep, she let her guard down. Stupid.

She takes the stairs two at a time and nearly crashes to a stop halfway down. Tinny music drifts up to where she is, a blare of trumpeting fanfare. The narrator is distorted-sounding enough that she only catches every few words, "another... men liberated... Captain America!" Is it a newsreel? She creeps the rest of the way down the stairs and finds him sitting in the dining room, with her laptop on the table. Over his shoulder she can see Rogers in his uniform and helmet in grainy black and white footage. Standing next to him is Barnes, wearing an uncomfortable squint. "We couldn't have done it without Sergeant Barnes," she hears then-Rogers say, clapping a hand on Barnes's shoulder. "Without him, we'd all be goners."

She clears her throat, and he only twitches a little. "It's weird, isn't it, to see a stranger with your face."

"Like you'd know," he mutters.

"More than you think." She pulls up a chair and sits so she can watch too. "Are you trying to remember?"

He shakes his head, hair flying. He brushes it out of his eyes with an impatient gesture. "I'm trying to understand why he didn't kill me."

"You were his best friend."

Another shake of his head. "I wasn't then. He was my mission objective. My only thought was that he needed to die."

"Until it wasn't." She knows where he is right now. The fog starts to lift and you're left with the wreckage it reveals. "How long have you been watching these things?" Glancing at the YouTube history, he may have been awake for hours.

"I keep thinking if I look at him long enough..."

"You'll what? Remember him? Be his friend again?" She suspects there may have been more than friendship there. Half the fun of throwing the names of potential dates at Rogers is waiting to see if he'll turn around and tell her to stop suggesting just girls.

"Feel something."

Her hand itches to swat the back of his head, but she won't risk it after last night's outburst. "You know, for a guy who isn't feeling anything, you're doing an awful lot of staring at his face." She changes the subject. "You eat breakfast?"

"No."

"You rummaged through my bag to get my laptop and couldn't grab something to eat while you were at it?" She does swat him this time, on his good shoulder, carefully, on her way into the living room.

While she's digging for instant coffee and some food, she dials her cell phone. Rogers answers, out of breath and with the sound of DC morning traffic behind him.

"We need to meet," she says. "I think I found something you're looking for."

* * *

**Translations**

_Vstavaytye. Udar'tye menya snova._ - Get up. Hit me again.  
_Smotritye._ - Look.  
_Tovarishch, prosnis'._ - Comrade, wake up.  
_Tebe bol'no. Pozvol' mne pomoch'._ - You're sick. Let me help.  
_Eto ya._ - It's me.  
_Da._ - Yes.  
_Pochemu ty zdyes? Mne eto snitsya?_ - Why are you here? Am I dreaming?  
_Idi syuda._ - Come here.  
_Nyet._ - No.  
_Blyad'_ - Whore


End file.
